The Orrel

While they're not technically immortal, the cells of the Orrel are blessed with such robustness that it's hard to tell the difference. This longevity has made them wary of taking on even the smallest risks - a one-hundredth of a percent can kill you, if you live long enough. They nest only atop remote mountains and a young Orrel may live to be one hundred before ever setting foot outside the nest. They reproduce asexually through a process that puts them in tremendous danger. However, a single mature Orrel can colonize a planet single-handedly, given enough time.

The wealth of knowledge they obtain over their long lives makes them valued counselors, and members of almost any species will listen when an Orrel speaks - no matter how much their government dislikes it. From these positions of influence and secrecy, the Orrel bend the universe to their will, imploring the short-lived races to take the chances they personally find unthinkable.

Orrel Affinity

• Counselors: The Orrel may use their colony ships on planets that are already inhabited. When they do this, they found a Orrel Outpost.
  • A planet with an Orrel Outpost duplicates some percentage of the science generated each turn to the Orrel. This percentage increases as the planet's approval rating decreases. 
  • The Orrel have some influence in the political leanings of each planet with an Orrel Outpost.
  • The Orrel Outposts have a "standing" rating that represents the opinion of the planetary community (not the government) of the Orrel. A higher standing increases the science gain and political influence of the Orrel outpost. The Orrel gain standing by longstanding peace with the planet and lose standing by engaing in war with that planet or nearby planets. The Orrel can also research technologies that allow them to spend dust to permanently increase the standing of an Orrel outpost.
  • Orrel Outposts cannot be destroyed in any way, save the complete elimination of that Orrel empire. However, an empire who discovers they have an Orrel outpost can temporarily negate it by initiating a crackdown. Crackdowns give a penalty to industry for the duration of the crackdown, and a penalty to approval that scales with the standing of the Orrel Outpost.
• Those Who Remain: If the Orrel lose a planet, an Orrel Outpost is automatically created on that planet. It starts with a bonus to standing that increases with the Orrel population that was on that planet.
• Singular: Orrel have a massive penalty to food generation; however, building a colony ship does not take any population from the planet it's built on.
• Safe Travelers: Orrel colony ships are very slow, but unable to be harmed.

Designer Notes: Something I've noticed is that a lot of 4x players (myself included) will just restart the game if they lose a war. Even the "peaceful" factions typically focus on having the ability to deter war entirely, or at least disincentive it - actually having a war and losing it feels bad, even for the factions who know they're "bad at war". I thought I would take the peaceful concept one step further and design a faction that's good at LOSING wars - where quickly surrendering a planet doesn't feel like "Oh crap, the weakness of my peace-loving faction has been exposed" but instead "Yup, that planet was always going to be theirs." Fighting for the independence of a planet isn't something worth gambling such rare lives over - let them take this one, and manipulate their citizens to be more pacifistic. (But of course, it is rather important you hold on to at least one system...)